Chapter Twenty
Allie
I am woken up by . . . cooking smells. Oh my God, cooking smells? In a cabin. In the middle of Cote Rock. Burning. Is something burning? Although, it smells like soup. Garlic, onions . . . ?
I jump up. For a microsecond, I have no idea where I am.
It’s that familiar disorientation you get after a nap, or the first day waking up in a new hotel room.
But then it comes back to me. My ankle, the cabin, Milo, bear skins.
The cabin is in darkness, except for a long, tapered candle flickering on the table, and the air is warm.
Milo’s coat is over me, like a blanket, and he sits at the mapley glow of the wood-burning stove, the flames flickering his face amber.
The wooden covers of the windows have been shut for faux nighttime.
He’s stirring something, and wearing a dusky pink T-shirt, biceps lean and snug against the sleeve hems. It’s the first time I’ve seen him like this.
Casual. Like someone who could simply be at home.
It reminds me of his sleepy form on video calls.
The naked, taut chest, the bedhead, the shorts .
. . For a second, I’m breathless at the memory, followed by a strange, sudden tickle of butterflies.
‘Milo?’
‘Oh. Hey. You fell asleep. Are you warm?’
I nod. ‘Very.’
‘Asshole designers and their duck feathers,’ he says with a lopsided grin. ‘Asshole actors and their fires.’
I sit up in the bed. This feels . . . cosy. Safe. Warmth and cooking and roaring fires. And Milo, safe and calming.
‘Are you actually cooking?’
‘All right, so don’t, like, scold me or anything,’ he laughs, ‘but I got a little creative. I used one of the metal dish things we eat out of, and I’m making us ramen on the stove top.
It gets real hot. We used to have one of these.
My mom used to make fondue on it for some reason.
But we seem to only have one bowl.’ He winces.
‘I forgot to pack mine, so I’m using yours. Anyway. We’ll have to share.’
‘Share ramen?’
‘Well, share a bowl. There’s enough ramen for two.’ He stares at me, waiting, fire dancing in his eyes. ‘Allie, you’re not supposed to look haunted. Like . . . this is a nice gesture.’
‘I’m not haunted.’ But I am a little. Waking to Milo Ford – Milo Ford – cooking for me in a tiny cabin, in the middle of the Arctic.
I’m half expecting to be shaken awake soon, and realise, that, of course, I’m dreaming, because that would make the most sense.
‘I’m just . . . I can’t believe I fell asleep. ’
‘Don’t forget that we walked a gazillion miles today. And the skies pissed all over us.’
‘I know.’ I watch him stir slowly. ‘Still. We’ve not even done a full day.’
He laughs to himself and shakes his head. ‘Let yourself off the hook, Allie,’ he says. ‘Hey, I was also thinking – well, there’s this big-ass metal bucket thing over there. Like it’s huge. We have snow . . .’
‘Right?’
‘Well, you said you wanted a bath.’
My face flashes with heat. ‘Milo, I’m not bathing in a bucket.’
‘I’m not saying that, Cap.’ He stirs, chuckling. ‘I was thinking for your ankle. You could soak it. Warm water, I don’t know. It would help? I’m not an expert obviously, but I read some Bear Grylls before I came here and—’
‘Did you? Bear Grylls?’
He carries on speaking but now through a smile.
A look on his face that says, I will finish this sentence, thanks.
‘And you can melt snow and ice, boil to purify, filter and use it. And I have this stuff I brought with me. It’s like pocket soap?
You can use it on hands and your body, or even on, like, laundry. ’
A smile takes over my face at the sound of ‘laundry’. ‘You were going to do laundry in the Arctic?’
‘You never know, Allie Lake, what things might arise.’ He meets my eyes, still stirring the noodles.
This is – nice. This cosy, candle-flickered bubble.
Are we pretending? Being professional? Good camp mates?
It doesn’t feel like it. But even if it is, this sleepy haze makes me feel like I, uncharacteristically, for once, don’t care.
‘Anyway. I guess I just thought – I could whip you up a sort of bath? For the ankle. It says on the box you can dilute it to clean cuts and stuff.’
Something warm unseals in my chest now, trickles, pours, floods it.
I freeze as if with the shock of it; the force of my own feelings.
Sian and I would watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas when we were kids, in pyjamas, the sound of Mum ironing, and this feels like that moment – when the Grinch believes something awful is happening to him but for the first time, he feels love.
I used to hide my face at that scene; swallow tears down behind my hands.
I was nine. But I feel like I might cry now.
And like I also might run away. That’s if it wasn’t torrential out there.
But, psychologically, I am equal parts on a boat with Lars, screaming ‘Go go go! To the horizon!’ and curled up here, despite it all, with Milo.
And then I realise what this is. I’m being looked after. I have never been looked after.
‘No?’ Milo asks. ‘No pressure, I just thought it might help—’
‘No,’ I blurt. ‘No, I’d . . . I’d like that. I think it’s . . . smart.’
‘Shit, she’s calling me smart, someone call the authorities,’ he says, standing and flashing a smile. ‘Also, the noodles are ready. Do you want to go first?’
‘Or we can just share? Eat together,’ and I can hardly look at him when I say that.
It’s that word. Together. Because this all feels a little dangerous.
I made a pact with myself that I would never be stupid enough to let anyone in this close again because of him.
And now not only am I letting someone in, but it’s the person who necessitated that pact.
The perpetrator himself. Yet it feels utterly ridiculous that Milo could ever be the perpetrator— gosh.
I mean that. The soft, wild hair. The warm caramel eyes.
The slow way he walks, holding our dinner, like it isn’t a camping bowl full of cheap ramen noodles.
And what now? What if we say we both just made mistakes?
Say, like Milo insists, it doesn’t matter?
What would that mean then? What does it mean to accept someone else was behind the leak?
Milo sits down next to me on the bed. I swivel, fold the coat neatly behind us, watch as it puffs up again, like an inflating balloon. Candlelight strobes our faces. He holds the bowl between us and hands me a fork.
‘Captain,’ he says, huskily.
‘Thanks. Officer.’
We eat in silence; just the scrape and twists of forks against metal. The atmosphere, like smoke. The wind battering the cabin. Wood in the log burner, spitting.
‘This is . . . nice, right?’ he says, voice soft and low. ‘An actual hot meal eaten inside. Today was cold. Is cold.’
‘And wet,’ I add.
‘And pretty fucking wild.’
‘Pretty fucking wild,’ I repeat and, meeting my eyes, we both smile, and my stomach backflips.
A full spring backwards. I can barely swallow.
I feel alight, like if he touched me, he’d get some sort of shock – gaze down at his fingertips, see the ends glowing.
And I’m terrified. Truly. I never used to understand, really, when Iris would just happily wander on back to someone who had dicked her around, caused so many tears, and yet – I can’t help this pull.
I can’t help but want to fall into him . . .
‘What is it?’ Milo asks.
‘Mm?’
He smiles, lopsided and gradual. ‘Something happened just then. Just – I don’t know, I felt a vibe.’
I scoff. ‘A vibe. Really?’
‘There was a vibe.’
‘There was not a vibe. Also, a vibe is not a thing. Neither is prana or sixth sense or— what?’
He places a hand to his chest, fork still hovering. ‘With respect, Allie. Those are all totally things.’
‘Where’s your proof?’
‘I have a shit ton of proof,’ he carries on, fork back into the bowl.
‘Do you now?’
Our hands, at the bowl, twisting noodles, touch. Neither of us move them. And I’m glad. It feels nice to be close to him. I want to be close to him.
‘OK, you want proof?’ he remarks, both of us twisting, then eating. ‘Um. OK, when my meditation teacher, Wish, was pregnant . . .’
‘Wish?’
‘Wish. When Wish had said nothing to me about babies or pregnancy or any of that shit, no sign of babies or bumps, I knew. She walked in and I just – knew. Purely from just energy, from vi—’
‘Meditation teacher?’
Milo quirks another smile.
‘And I repeat – Wish?’
‘Got a problem?’ he asks, the flick of an eyebrow.
I smile. ‘No. And what about the spirituality coach? Still seeing him? What was his name again? Dave wasn’t it? Kev? Roy! It was Roy.’
Milo laughs. ‘As I said. Got a problem?’ He leans in now, touches his arm to mine.
The bare skin of our forearms pressed together.
I used to spend time wondering about this; whether I would ever be the sort of person who would find someone they wanted to sit this closely with.
And perhaps it’s the tiredness, or the vulnerability of being here, in the cold, alone, or that we’re untouchable here, with nobody else to disturb us.
But I just let it arrive, inevitably, like a sunset.
I want Milo to draw closer. I want to be near him, and it feels right that I am.
‘No. No problem, but,’ I say quietly, ‘vibes don’t scientifically exist.’
‘Well, all I’m saying,’ he replies, low and slow. ‘You thought something and I saw it in your eyes. Felt it. A little . . . something.’
Yes, I want to say. I was thinking about how much I like you, even though I shouldn’t. I was thinking how I was mere moments away from falling in love with you once.
Instead, I say, ‘Nope, t-there was no something.’
‘Right,’ he says, our faces just a breath apart. He gives a tiny twitch of a smile, then slowly, the moment dissipates.